


and while no-one was watching (so I may or may not have existed)

by OrdinaryRealities



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Happy Ending, non-binary Warlock, some self-hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-01-15 10:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryRealities/pseuds/OrdinaryRealities
Summary: Warlock picks a Halloween costume. (It's queer.)





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> So, umm. It's been exactly a year (well, about 12 hours to go) since I posted my first story here, and I thought it would be fun to do this as a Halloween thing - post a little queer piece. This one is sort of sad. I'm sorry about that. I wrote it in a week. I think I might add a coda eventually? Or make it part of the Warlock in high school story I'm working on? But for the moment, it's sad. I'm sorry. I hope it's hopeful too.
> 
> Warning for baby trans Warlock's existential angst and worry about what their bigoted father might think. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure that I got all the pronouns where I want them, but if I refer to Warlock as "he" in parentheses, please let me know so I can fix it. Same goes for any sort of unintentional racism/sexism/ableism/etc. If I don't know it's there, I can't do better next time.
> 
> The title comes from "Unlocatable" by Ruby Robinson, from her collection Every Little Sound.
> 
> EDIT 11/21: As you may have noticed, I added chapters! I am started on a sequential story that takes place the following year and have also begun to draft a Halloween something like the ficlet in the end notes. Depending on how close that third chapter ends up being, I may or may not leave the bit in the end notes as an alternate ending. We'll see.

Warlock loved Halloween. The costumes Nanny found were always amazing, and Brother Francis always found the time to tag along. He and Nanny would dress up as a set. (Warlock was learning how well Nanny lied to herself just watching the two interact, as well as the futility of “Do as I say, not as I do.”) 

They had gone as salt and pepper shakers one year while Warlock was a teapot. The year they had gone as an angel and a demon Warlock had been the galaxy, standing in a frame that held the shimmering fabric out in spiral arms. They had been Romeo and Juliet one year, and Warlock had been a pirate. He still didn’t know how Nanny had made the wooden leg work. It had been like his lower leg had really disappeared. And Brother Francis’s ruff he wore as Romeo was really truly from Shakespeare’s time! 

They had gone as Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall last year, escorting Warlock as Ron Weasley. (Nanny had refused to read past the first book with Warlock yet, and Brother Francis wouldn’t let them watch the movies unless they had read the book, but Warlock’d had nightmares after watching Fantastic Beasts at Elliot’s house, so maybe they were right.) 

Warlock knew exactly what he wanted to do this year, but he kept putting off saying anything. It was a dumb idea for a costume anyway. He scuffed a foot through the driveway gravel. 

His father would be mad when he found out. It would be the battle of the dolls all over again. (Nanny had won that battle, somehow. Sort of. Warlock was allowed to have the dolls. There was just no playing with them in front of Thaddeus. Brother Francis had added to their shelf a book about a boy who played with dolls, but Warlock had to stop reading it after the boy ran away from home. It was too scary.) He wasn’t sure Brother Francis would have a book for this occasion though. Better to pretend he wanted to be something else. Pi, or a Pythagorean triangle. Better still to claim that he was too old for Halloween. He was ten, after all. It would be safer. Warlock kicked at the gravel again. It was just… 

It wasn’t like he would be able to explain where the idea had come from. Nanny might think it was about making fun. While she had always encouraged him to stir up trouble, her disapproving frown made it clear that he was only to bully bullies and never the people society climbed over and then tried to discard. Nanny would be disappointed. She and Brother Francis would look at him like they were afraid they had gone wrong somewhere. If it was going to upset both sets of parents – the birth pair and the people raising him – he was better off asking to do something else, even if they would be upset for opposite reasons.

He knew exactly where the idea had come from. It had been Nanny’s day off (And Brother Francis’s; they always took days off together) and Warlock and his mother had gone up to London to the Victoria and Albert Museum – his mum was big on cultural education. It was afterwards, walking down the street, when Warlock had spotted him. Her? It had been Nanny, one hundred percent, not one doubt in his mind. She’d been dressed as a man, for sure. No, not dressed as. She had been a man, just as definitely as she was a woman at home. That casual loping stride, the way his hair had managed to look like he was an aging rock star instead of just looking like what women did with their hair… Warlock was immediately certain. The ache he’d felt over it was something he was less sure of. He’d have said he was just overdue for lunch, but that didn’t usually make him feel like crying without being sad. It was a recognition.

He’d only started to figure it out a few weeks later, complaining to a friend about how he wasn’t allowed to watch the Fantastic Beasts sequel. Elliot had shrugged and told him that if he was worried about people assuming he was scared he could just say he hadn’t wanted to support it. “You don’t make one of your two Jewish characters join Wizarding Hitler, you don’t kill off the one black woman you’ve cast, don’t get me started on Nagini… Anyway, JK Rowling hates trans people, so I wouldn’t watch any more of her movies even if they were better.”

Warlock had heard the movie critique part of this before – Elliot had an older sister – so he felt justified in ignoring it in favor of the unfamiliar term. “Trans people?”

Elliot scowled at him. “If you have a problem–”

“I might be able to tell you whether I do,” Warlock liked to think that his patience was as withering as Brother Francis’s, but he knew it was, realistically, going to take a lot more practice. “If you told me what it meant.”

Elliot had the grace to drop his gaze. “You know, when your family thinks that you’re a boy but you’re actually a girl. Or something else altogether.” The weight of the idea settled in Warlock’s stomach before he even understood it. Not in a bad way. Like ballast. 

Elliot watched Warlock’s face anxiously and Warlock hoped that his emotions would be at least as difficult for someone else to read as they were for him. Distance was supposed to provide perspective. A distraction would help. Deflect. “What- there are other options?”

Elliot loved to know things. “Of course! Loads. You can be both at once, or neither. You can go back and forth. You can even just not have a gender at all.”

Warlock scoffed – a tried and true method for getting Elliot’s sources without sounding interested. “Sure. And I suppose your mom told you that, did she?”

The comic Elliot had recommended, red-faced and angry at Warlock’s derision, was available as an ebook from the library. It was very informative. 

And so, as Warlock’s tenth Halloween approached, he couldn’t manage to stomp out the idea of being a girl. For Halloween. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that what the world would accept and what his dad would accept were very different things. It was far too dangerous to think of changing his pronouns, even just in his head. (They/them. Warlock knew it for sure. They’d never wanted anything this badly in their life, but if they referred to themself this way, even just inside their head, there would be the ever-present danger that they might slip.) He couldn’t. 

Warlock gritted his teeth. He would go and tell Nanny that he wanted to be… A knight. No, a soldier. If he was going to pick a Halloween costume to please his father there was no reason to stop halfway. 

He would think of himself as a boy. He/him. If gender was a construct, there was no reason why he couldn’t be a boy and still wonder what his eyes would look like with makeup on them. He could be a boy and like pink and ponies and dance. A boy who was afraid of scary stories and the guns his father’s secret service carried on their waists. Boys could do all that. He could be a boy and still be himself. 

(They had managed it for ten years as a boy already without even knowing that there was vocabulary to talk about it. Surely they could do this for another ten years. By then they’d be out of the house. Practically out of university, really. They’d be able to be themself, then.)

Nanny and Brother Francis were sitting near the flower bed, not being friends. (This was how Nanny always characterized it to Warlock. “No we aren’t! We’re not friends!”)

Warlock lifted his chin and prepared to march up to Nanny and demand to be… he sighed.

Nanny looked up as he approached and jumped a little, as if she was doing something she shouldn’t. 

Brother Francis smiled. “Hello Warlock!” 

Warlock imagined it for a moment. Shaving his head, slipping on that weird computerized camo… 

“I want to be a girl.” 

Nanny hesitated.

Brother Francis beamed.

“For Halloween.”

Nanny’s gaze now was a little too understanding. 

(For no reason they could understand, Warlock thought of the look on Nanny’s face the year she’d been an Angel. (Brother Francis had insisted. “Halloween is about being something you aren’t, don’t you think?” And for some reason Nanny had seen that as a winning argument.) It wasn’t exactly a happy look. Nanny had looked more put out than anything, on the surface. She’d muttered something about someone seeing her out like this. Warlock had thought, though, that underneath it there had been a sort of angry longing, like she didn't want to want the white wings and halo. They'd asked her if she thought that Brother Francis was an Angel normally, still trying to discover the reason that argument had worked, and she had laughed, but Warlock had woken up in the middle of the night and discovered Nanny out in the garden shouting at the plants. She only did that when she was unhappy.)

“Any particular sort of girl?” Brother Francis had asked. “A nurse, or a cheerleader?” 

Warlock knew without looking that Nanny was wearing exactly the same scowl. “I wouldn’t have to be a girl to be a nurse. Just a regular girl.”

“You’ll give me more of a description about what exactly you want to wear later,” Nanny informed them, and glanced at Brother Francis. “What will you be then?”

The gardener shrugged. “Are we all doing a gender swap?”

Nanny snorted. “No.”

Warlock wondered again about that glimpse they had caught of Nanny as a man. Did Brother Francis know?

Brother Francis let out a sigh of relief. “Oh good. I’ve never much gone in for that. I wouldn’t know how to do it.”

Warlock frowned. “Trans people?”

Nanny ruffled their hair. 

Brother Francis flapped a hand, looking upset. “No, of course not. I patched up far too many drag queens in the eighties to not go in for them. You know.”

Warlock glanced up in time to catch Nanny’s fond smile. “Gender is the word you’re looking for. Gender.”

Warlock blinked at the gardener and tried out some new vocabulary. “Are you agender then, Brother Francis?”

Nanny smirked at him. “Well, Angel? Aren’t you going to answer?”

It was hard to tell, with the red cheeks, but Warlock thought Brother Francis blushed. “I suppose.” 

Nanny answered the question Warlock still didn’t dare to ask. “I think the kids are calling it – me – genderfluid these days.”

“Not here though.” Warlock scowled down the driveway. 

Nanny rested a hand on their shoulder. “Not here. Not yet.”

Though Warlock never knew, it was the next time Crowley reported in to Hell that he finally found the courage to whisper to Aziraphale. “Warlock is too normal.”


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warlock confronts the idea of doing Halloween in the States, without Brother Francis and Nanny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was not supposed to be a second chapter of this, but *insert shrugging emoji here* now there is. There will be a third chapter which will include more canon characters again. I really WANT to write Sarah's POV of the Halloween of this chapter, so depending how bored I get at work, that *may* be a thing in the future? If it happened, I think it would make more sense as a separate fic in a series? But if any readers have strong opinions one way or another, let me know. 
> 
> Once again, I'm at least 90% sure that I got all Warlock's pronouns where I want them? If you see me refer to them as he/him inside parenthesis at any point, please let me know. I *think* the only parenthetical 'he's belong to other people but I could be wrong. The rest of the pronouns followed a lot of other contradictory rules, so I won't try to make you beta them for me as you read. 
> 
> Finally, (and always) if I've said anything particularly ignorant or small-minded, I promise it was an accident, please let me know so I can try to do better. Thanks for reading!

It wasn’t until Warlock’s mother asked that he even thought about it. He’d been too busy mourning the life he lived in England to even think about his favorite holiday (something in them flinched away – Nanny and Brother Francis couldn’t help not being there, but they were gone all the same – Halloween, gender, their father, they’d shoved it all down in favor of figuring out life alone in a foreign country). He’d spent September in a daze. By the time he began paying attention, in the beginning of October, his classmates had all written him off.

There was a moment, when she asked, when he thought he’d sulk right through Halloween. That would show them all, Nanny and his father alike (Nanny had never told them she’d be around forever) but a sleeping vein of spite raised its head. (They were, after all, Thaddeus’s child. Nanny had, after all, raised them. Nature and nurture alike planted that spite.) What would really serve his father right was Warlock being him(them)self. (If they still felt sad about Nanny and Brother Francis, well, it would serve those two right if Warlock enjoyed the holiday without them too.) Warlock set their jaw. 

“I haven’t decided yet.” Elliot had sent him a youtube video of his sister's current favorite singer. “Maybe David Bowie?”

It was impossible to tell what his mother was thinking. (Maybe if she’d ever spent time with them… Nanny and Brother Francis had never been able to hide anything Warlock wanted to know.) 

“I’m not Nanny Ashtoreth, you know. I won’t be able to sew you a costume overnight. Anyway, how- He has that lightning bolt thing, doesn’t he?” She frowned. “How would you even do that, makeup?”

Warlock bit his lips. 

“I don’t know that I have the artistic streak for that. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be someone American, to help you settle in?”

Warlock swallowed and tried to sound like he hadn’t set his heart on Bowie already. “What were you thinking of?” (There had been a picture that came up when Warlock googled him, an album cover that hadn’t been released in the States. Bowie lounged across it in a dress, knees together, oddly prim, and the skirt spilling down the bed.)

She hesitated. “What about something fun? A superhero-” She hurried to continue as Warlock’s lip curled. “Or someone from The Breakfast Club! You know, you might really like- Have you seen The Breakfast Club yet?” (Years later, when they finally watched it, Warlock would wonder that that was her association with David Bowie. An epigraph. They didn’t even use his music. She could at least have picked on Labyrinth.)

Warlock pulled a face and avoided the question. “What if I found someone else to do the face paint?” (Calling it face paint could only help their cause. Satan forbid the Dowlings’ son wear makeup.) “We could go thrifting,” an activity they could both enjoy, “for the clothes, and I’ll ask around at school – maybe the art teacher would do the face paint.” The son she imagined he was wouldn’t even hold the brush if it meant he could be Bowie. “Good thing it’s a school day.”

The next step was what stymied him. Youtube quickly convinced him that he couldn’t do it on his own. Warlock spent the next week staying in town after school and using computer time at the library to do research. He couldn’t do that without practice. (It was like magic. They wanted to learn so badly. These girls on youtube turned their faces lean and angular in a twelve minute video. It was like being somebody else. Warlock had never wanted to learn to do something so badly in their life.) They couldn’t risk their father catching them playing with makeup. Even with face paint. 

There was a girl in his English class who wore eyeliner. Sometimes eyeshadow to go with it in odd colors. There was a boy in maths Warlock had seen in the library sometimes. He hung out with someone who wore cool makeup and had shaved half their head. They looked like Brother Francis to Warlock. Warm and cuddly. (A parent? An aunt or uncle? They seemed too old to be a sibling but young to be a parent.) 

The boy seemed like a sports person. He was tall and (Warlock hated to consider this a factor, but Elliot would have pointed it out in a moment) dark-skinned. Intimidating. (The person in the library with him was white though. Maybe not a relative? There was something about the easy camaraderie that reminded Warlock of Nanny and Brother Francis.) The girl intimidated Warlock. They both seemed too comfortable in their assigned gender roles to be safe. 

In the end, the boy made up Warlock’s mind for him. 

Warlock was studying makeup youtube again (maybe if they watched enough contouring videos it could make up for a lack of practice?) when someone tapped them on the shoulder. Warlock had half-turned before they realized that it wasn’t (could never have been) Nanny and nearly jumped out of their skin.

The boy was looking at Warlock’s computer screen. (Minimizing it now would just make it seem like something Warlock didn’t want seen.) Warlock breathed in, thinking of Nanny, and did his best imitation of her casual sprawl. “Halloween is coming up.”

The boy turned to look at him, his voice scornful. “And you’re going as a trans woman?” 

Warlock’s shoulders drew back and he lifted his chin, voice cool. (Like Brother Francis now.) “Actually, I’m going as David Bowie.” He met the boy’s eye and dug the nail from each finger in turn into the same spot on the seam of his thumb knuckle. (Hand in pocket, out of sight.) “Why, do you have a problem with trans people then?”

The boy scowled, gestured towards the person he usually hung out with. “My sister is trans. I have a problem with people who think they’re funny.”

Warlock was familiar with loving other people better than family, but he’d never have dared call Brother Francis or Nanny parents. (They might have disagreed.) “I don’t. Think I’m funny.” (Or was it thinking trans people were funny? Too late. Shit. Keep talking.) Warlock dug three nails into his palm and added in a bored tone. “My Nanny’s- was genderfluid.” He paused, until the enormity of even that admission hit him, and bit his cheek. “My parents never knew.” He didn’t know if that made it better or not.

If this kid told, Warlock would just have to tell his parents that the boy was lying. Making it up. 

(It wasn’t until that night that Warlock realized they could also disown Nanny. They discarded the thought just as fast.)

The boy’s entire attitude changed. “Oh, I didn’t- So why makeup tutorials, for David Bowie? My sister could help, maybe.”

Warlock couldn’t help the question that escaped. “Your parents don’t mind? That she’s- My father made it sound like people here aren’t as- as _decent_,” he snarled the word (how often had it been weaponized against people like them, but there wasn’t a better word, _why_ were words not _ever_ enough?) “as people in London about being trans.”

Warlock had never been in London as a trans person, but that was where Nanny was from. She seemed to love it. Brother Francis too. It had to be better than here. Warlock’s father was from here.

The other boy’s jaw winched shut. He breathed while Warlock watched his hands. Warlock stabbed a fingernail into the edge of his thumbnail and wondered, detached, how much it would hurt if the boy punched him. (Imagined the impact against the point of their cheekbone. Would their father send them back to the UK if they started getting beaten up or just demand they “man up” and hit back?)

“If you want to consult with my sister about makeup, I’m William, she’s Sarah.” He turned and stalked back to his sister.

Warlock closed the youtube video and slipped into the closest stacks. The books, obligingly, towered above them – him! – and hid him from view. Warlock bit his lip, hard, and ran fingers and eyes over the spines that faced him. Someone loomed at the end of the aisle and Warlock grabbed at a spine blindly. (Not blindly. They couldn’t be seen with a book called _How to Be Both_, but if the author of a book about libraries happened to have written that too, well. Warlock just hadn’t seen the other title.) He flipped it over to read the back and stepped close to the shelf without raising his head until a shadow fell across the book and didn’t move.

The sister – Sarah? – was looking at him. “Ali Smith? She’s cool. Which,” she mimed flipping the book. “Oh,” as Warlock obeyed, “_Public Library_. That’s the first one of hers I read. There’s a really cool story about a rosebush if you like weird.”

Warlock hadn’t planned to actually read it but he did miss weird. 

“I’m sorry about William. I didn’t realize he was coming over to terrorize-”

“No, he didn’t.” Warlock didn’t even know if it was a lie. (No weird in a book would match the weird they missed.) “He said you might be able to help me,” he drew a lightning bolt in front of his face with a hand, “Ziggy Stardust.”

He’d found an outfit that was as much 80’s as queer. That would do with the iconic lightning bolt. All he needed was the face paint. (makeup.)

“Help y- Oh!” She mimicked the gesture. “For Halloween?” 

Warlock chewed his lip, but he had to lay out the whole problem if he wanted her help. (They needed it, and somehow she had fallen into their lap. Brother Francis and Nanny would both disown them if they didn’t take advantage, they felt sure.) 

“I can buy whatever makeup you would need, as long as I can pay in cash. But I can’t have it. And I can’t have the- my parents or anyone,” No one liked a rich kid who talked about their chauffeur. (No one ever thought about the fact that the chauffeur did more parenting than their parents. And Simms was no Nanny.) “drive me to the makeup store.” He dug his nails into his palm again. The emotion had snuck up on him. 

Sarah took that in stride. “My birth family was like that. I was lucky. William’s family was willing to adopt the babysitter. So you need someone to take you to buy it and somewhere to stash it after Halloween.”

“I can’t have it.” Warlock shook their head, annoyed that she, of all people, didn’t seem to understand. “At all. And it would be better if I gave someone else money to buy it. Less chance of anyone mentioning seeing me there.”

She frowned at him. “Won’t your parents see it on your face when you get home? Or Are you wearing something else for trick or treating and counting on no one from school mentioning it? People talk. That’s how my parents found out.”

Warlock shook their head. “No, they know. It’s OK as long as someone else puts it on me. It’s the thought of their precious” (idea of a) “son knowing how to apply makeup that’s the issue.” Bitterly, “As far as they know I’ll never get my hands dirty.” They bit their lip, but Sarah smiled. “I can buy you- give you money to buy some sort of makeup that you’d like too.”

“No need,” she waved a hand. “William and I will sort you out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I couldn't resist the plug for Ali Smith. (Who does indeed have a weird short story about a rosebush growing out of someone's chest.) 
> 
> The final chapter... will almost definitely get here around Christmas? I think? I've got a bunch of other things that I have to do with my time in the next three weeks, so it seems unlikely that I'll get to it before then unless I engage in some truly irresponsible work-avoidance. (Which gives you at least a 50% chance of getting it earlier, tbh).
> 
> For all those worrying about poor Warlock, Sarah definitely teaches them to do their own makeup, if not in a week, then after Halloween. It's a life skill! (Also, I spent at least an hour watching people do the Ziggy Stardust face on youtube. Guys, I could never, but I love it so much. Someday I'm going to learn how to do more than just mascara and eyeliner SPECIFICALLY for a Ziggy Stardust face.)


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam plots. Warlock accepts it. Crowley and Aziraphale like to keep the former antichrist on his toes. (It's not actually Halloween.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say the week between Christmas and New Years. *I* thought I was going to get this up earlier and surprise you all, but I just didn't. Here it is, late only in my head. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> William turned into a bit of a dick, but I think Warlock likes that. They try really hard to be pleasant - they're a bit of a people-pleaser in this story - so I think they appreciate William being more straightforward. It lets them relax and not have to worry about what he's really thinking.
> 
> Once again, if I said anything ignorant, and especially if I misgendered Warlock or Brian anywhere, please let me know! Happy reading!

Their first October out of school Warlock and William took Sarah on a trip. Sarah had suggested it. Warlock had been dating William – openly – since June and they all had jobs and still, though things were better than they had been just a few years before, three queers with job security was, as Sarah had pointed out, still worth celebrating.

As a result, Warlock found themself in the UK for the first time since they were eleven. The first thing they did was look up an old friend. Ellen may have been out now, but she was just as happy as ever to explain things. Warlock didn’t even have to bait her by pretending disbelief these days. On the first of November she took their whole group out.

“And this,” she swung the door open, “is the BEST QUEER HANGOUT in LONDON, right cowards?” 

There was a general clamor in response. 

A head of brown curls bobbed upwards as the man they belonged to stood. The man in front of them looked… cherubic. For a moment Warlock thought of Brother Francis. Then he spoke, flashing a smirk worthy of Nanny around the assembled group. “Now Ellen. Are you trying to suggest that the straights have anywhere better?”

Ellen laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course. Right you are, Adam. Warlock, Adam and I went to uni together. Adam’s going to be a famous author.” 

Adam frowned at them through the gloom of the half-lit pub. “Warlock? I feel like I ought to know you somehow.”

Warlock shrugged. “I haven’t been back to England since August ’19.” They slid an arm around William’s waist in case Adam was trying to hit on them. 

Adam’s frown had acquired layers. “Do you know a man named Anthony Crowley? Or have you ever been to Tadfield?”

Warlock shrugged at the first name, then placed the second and blinked. “Not since I was born. I just found out recently that Satanic nuns were involved.” Harriet’s fit over their gender had ranged far and wide.

Sarah snorted. “If we’re going to be talking about Satanic nuns then I’m going to need a drink. William? Warlock? Ellen?” 

Adam said Warlock’s birthdate. Warlock shook their head absently at Sarah, then realized what Adam had just said. “Wha-”

“I said that I was born-”

Warlock cut him off. “No! Me too!” They added the year as Adam nodded.

In the shuffle as Adam and his friends made space and pulled up chairs for Warlock and their group William leaned in. 

“And that’s how he knows your name?” William started to sit only to pause again. “Is this another-” He censored himself in a way he rarely did in private but Warlock heard and loved him for the question anyway. Was this another part of some weird way Warlock’s parents had tried to fuck them up. They supposed it was possible. Maybe Harriet had hired a wet nurse for them or something. They shrugged. 

“Who knows.”

A woman leaned forward and offered William her hand around the woman now sitting on her lap. “I’m Pepper. This is my girlfriend Nadia, and that’s Brian and Wensleydale and you’ve met Adam.”

Warlock nodded cautiously as William shook her hand, still unsure what was going on here or if this whole group would turn unpleasant when someone spotted their pronoun button. 

“I expect we should take them to the bookstore tomorrow,” Adam decided, slouched into his chair. 

Warlock glanced at Ellen as she handed them a drink and sat. She shrugged and gestured across the table. “Warlock, I think you’ll like Brian.”

The whole group turned again and a hand appeared out of the cluster in front of Warlock. “Hullo Warlock.”

Warlock’s left hand gripped the edge of their chair as they returned the greeting. This bit, they were starting to suspect, would always feel a bit like freefall. “Warlock Dowling. They/them. Nice to meet you, Brian.”

The tallest and thinnest one of the group grinned at them. “I’m Brian and my pronouns are they/them too.”

Warlock pried their fingers off the seat and laced them through William’s instead. “This is my boyfriend William and his sister Sarah.”

Whether the audience got mad (Thaddeus) sad (Harriet) or claimed to be fine with it only to say something later than hit them in the gut (Their college history teacher) it always left Warlock on edge. The only reaction they could count on was this one Brian had offered, the one Nanny had given them all those years ago. For years, the only people Warlock had been out to were other genderqueer people. 

When they finally found the courage to admit their gender to William and Sarah (together, they never could have gone through it twice) the rush of relief at the way their oldest American friends had taken it hadn’t hit completely until a full month later when the other shoe still refused to drop. 

Brian and Wensleydale knocked on their hotel room door the following morning. 

“Adam thought you two might like to come to the bookshop this morning.”

Warlock was pretty sure that Ellen and Sarah hadn’t decided to visit the Victoria and Albert museum until they were on their way back from the bar. Warlock turned to William. 

“Bookstore? Or breakfast?” 

William grabbed their jackets and keycards. “Bookstore?”

Warlock laughed and paused just long enough to make sure they had their wallet. 

William glanced at their new friends loitering by the door as he and Warlock grabbed coffee and pastries from the breakfast buffet. 

“Did we tell them where we were staying? And don’t you need a keycard to get to our floor?”

Warlock shrugged. “It’s the UK. They’re all like this. I’ve told you about Nanny and Brother Francis.”

William shook his head. “You were a kid. Non-creepy people don’t know your room number when you didn’t tell them your hotel.”

Warlock played dirty rather than argue. “We can say that we’d rather not go to the bookstore.” They watched, amused, as William warred with himself.

“I… don’t want to be rude. Let’s go, just keep our eyes open. Just in case.” William was a bookstore person. 

Warlock grinned.

Adam visited Aziraphale and Crowley early that morning. 

Crowley was just stepping out to water the plants and give them a little encouragement when he spotted Adam, sitting in his car beside the Bentley and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Although eleven years of friendship had normalized the little pieces of power that had lingered in Adam, Crowley didn’t think he would ever get used to the way Adam always showed up at an opportune moment. He never missed them because they were out or busy, and when Crowley slept for a week Adam always showed up on the day he woke up. 

“Hullo Crowley!” Adam beamed at the demon as he popped out of his car.

Crowley frowned at him oppressively. Adam was never this effusive except when he had a scheme. The fact that they were generally lovely schemes didn’t mean that Crowley couldn’t give the young man a bit of a hard time. 

“Don’t look like that,” Adam pouted. “It’s a lovely day out. I think you and Aziraphale should go down and open the shop.”

Crowley smiled. “oh, I don’t know. Nice day like today, someone might want to try and buy something. It’s November. It’s a lazy time of year. Come water the plants with me.”

Adam followed him, looking crestfallen. 

Crowley relented. “Then we can go in and see what Aziraphale thinks about opening the shop today.” 

Warlock glanced sideways at Brian where they sat across the aisle. William was staring out the window at the London suburbs and Wensleydale was listening to music. Brian noticed them staring and smiled. 

Warlock shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not… I don’t know a lot of other non-binary people yet outside of the internet.”

Brian shrugged back. “No worries. It can be hard to identify us even when you walk past us on the street. Not all of us can wear pronoun pins everywhere.” They touched the pin on their lapel. “If I weren’t quite this freakishly tall I’d probably hesitate a lot more, or if mum and my Aunt weren’t so accepting.”

“Yeah? I’m hoping that I can find more irl people though, now that I’m out. A community or something.”

Brian’s face changed. “I mean, my community is made up mostly of people who accept me, not people who are also genderqueer. But there are other people like us out there. If you want them, if you go looking. I chose to stick with people who were like me in other ways.”

Warlock frowned. “I didn’t realize I had to pick one or the other.”

Brian laughed. “I’m an introvert. I only have time and energy for so many close friends.”

Warlock shook his head. 

William, beside them, spoke without turning his face from the window. “I can’t quite tell if you’re being nice or trying to induct Warlock into a cult.”

Warlock hid a grin.

Adam sat sprawled across his chair, mug of tea in hand and a crepe in front of him, clearly trying to rush as much as he could without being rude. Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, amused, as his angel picked delicately at the fresh strawberries and cream in his crepe, oblivious to the angst of their favorite antichrist. Aziraphale met his eyes with a wicked smirk. Not so oblivious, then. Crowley ducked his head to hide a grin.

“So, Adam.” Crowley turned to the stove to check the milk heating for his angel’s hot cocoa. “You decided to come out here so early this morning, just to suggest that we open the shop today? You could have called.” 

Adam floundered until Aziraphale took pity on him. 

“Now Crowley. It’s clearly a surprise.” 

Crowley ducked his head and poured Aziraphale’s cocoa into a travel mug.

Adam and Pepper were loitering across the street from the bus stop where they got off. They were talking to someone who stood with their back to the new arrivals, someone tall and – even when standing still – slightly too rubbery. 

Warlock stood too still and stared.

Adam and Pepper waved. The stranger half-turned, craning over one shoulder. 

Afterwards, Warlock wondered if they would have recognized Nanny had the meeting happened in some other country, at some other time of year. Their recollection of her was nervous and hovering, always attentive to where Warlock was, where Brother Francis was, where everything else was in relation to the three of them. Watchful to the point that it made her absent-minded.

This stranger was present and smiling, but Nanny even so. 

Warlock hung back a little as they crossed the street. 

Brother Francis exited the building behind Adam as they walked up. “Warlock! Are you still going by Warlock, my dear?”

Warlock hesitated another moment before darting forward to hug them. They gripped tight around Nanny’s bony spine and Brother Francis’s comforting bulk before pulling back to look the beloved strangers in the eye. 

“My name is Warlock. I’m genderqueer and use they/them pronouns.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to have more of the reunion of Nanny and Warlock and Brother Francis, but I really liked ending it with Warlock identifying themself as non-binary on a day that wasn't Halloween. They're absolutely delighted, OK, and they definitely keep in better touch afterwards.

**Author's Note:**

> The book Aziraphale gets for Warlock is Doll Bones by Holly Black, if anyone is curious. It would have freaked me out as a ten-year-old, but I loved it as an adult. (It is a kid's book. I'm just a scaredy-cat.)
> 
> I do want to make sure that I'm clear about one thing. When Crowley tells Aziraphale that Warlock is too normal, the only thing Crowley means is that the Antichrist would be able to fix a situation he was unhappy with. It is in no way supposed to be commentary on non-binary people. (I don't even remember what I thought people might think instead. I just remember coming up with an alternative interpretation at work that felt awful.) That's my whole clarification.
> 
> (Yes, Aziraphale and Crowley dressed up as each other (sort of) for Halloween one year.)
> 
> THIS IS NOW AN ALTERNATE ENDING, but I'm leaving it in the notes here in case anyone is attached to it.  
Look, as far as I'm concerned, and until I do something else to fix the way this ends, Warlock takes a semester abroad in college - not England. Somewhere they haven't been yet. But they take a long weekend and visit England and just happen to wander into a little bookshop in South Downs. The person behind the counter wears a little pin that says "they/them", so Warlock feels at home as they begin to browse. As they're paying, they chat a little bit with the cashier - their name is Brian - about the bookshop and school and so on. Warlock is just about to leave when the owner and his husband come in the door. Brian introduces them. Aziraphale recognizes them right away, but Crowley and Warlock only figure it out by degrees. Warlock tells our ineffable husbands all about the falling out they had with the Dowling parents and the uncles who are funding their college experience. Warlock comes back often to visit. It's a place to rest up for resistance.


End file.
